How many of you come close to following the guidance in this practice table? I suspect not many will manage the five hours a day. The maximum I could ever do, in say the run up to to Oban and Inverness, would have been two hours. For my pupils I recommend a minimum of an hour a day. This can be split into three sections: 20 minutes on the practice…
Nothing epitomises the romance of the games more than this old photograph from Glenfinnan in the 1970s. It shows the famous bench of Seton Gordon, Angus MacPherson, Invershin, and Col. Jock MacDonald, Viewfield, Skye, in confab. Combined ages not that far off 300. Clearly making notes after discussing the playing, but later just as likely to be talking of some arcane ethological phenomena (Seton was a renowned naturalist), a convoluted…
I am sure P/M Willie Ross did seminal service to piping when he streamlined the playing and writing of our ceòl beag technique. Gone were the doublings on C with the two D gracenotes, the open style of taorluath writing, the heavy D throw, the gracenoted birl. His six books also provided a catalogue of standard settings of many of the classic competition tunes in versions that everyone agreed were…
There can be few companies around that have done more to support piping than William Grant, the independent whisky distillers, writes the Editor. True to the wishes of their founding philanthropist Sandy Grant Gordon, the company continues to pour money into our art, these days through its charity wing, the William Grant Foundation. It states: ‘William Grant & Sons has always taken a long-term view to support its people, its…
The RSPBA’s Board of Directors met on April 15 and the minutes of the meeting were published yesterday. Out takes from the meeting are as follows: Consideration is being given to the restoration of the popular Twitter results feed at the Worlds. This was particularly useful in letting bands know the outcome of the qualifiers. Posts were made after official announcements, but they meant that band members had an instant…
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